1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hollow metal sphere with a mesoporous structure and a method for manufacturing the same and, more particularly, to a hollow metal sphere and a method for manufacturing the same, wherein the mesopores of the material for forming a shell of the hollow metal sphere are arranged in Ia3d cubic symmetry.
2. Description of Related Art
Metal nanostructure can be applied to photoelectric technologies related to energy fields, catalytic technologies related to green chemistry and nano-biomedical detections. For example, metal nanostructures can be used as Pt-based electrode catalysts for fuel cells, nano Au catalysts for several catalytic oxidation reactions or other reactions, and Pd catalysts for various organic catalytic reactions.
As people pay more and more attention to environmental protection, hydrogen fuel cells which can reduce environmental pollutions and decrease the emission of carbon oxide, are gradually commercialized. The fuel cells can be applied to various fields, such as large generators, and power supplements for rockets and vehicles. In addition, as the sizes of hydrogen fuel cells are developed into micro-size, the fuel cells may further be applied to portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones, notebooks and digital cameras.
As well known to those skilled in the art, the structures of metal nano-catalysts are unstable and may aggregate to form large particles. Hence, metal nano-catalysts have to be co-used with carriers having large surface areas to perform catalytic reactions. However, when metal nano-catalysts are co-used with carriers, the carriers may participate in the catalytic reaction or indirectly influence the chemical properties of the metal catalysts. Hence, several studies have focused on the development of metal nano-catalysts having stable structures, in order to obtain metal nano-catalysts which can be used alone without co-using carriers in catalytic reactions.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a hollow metal sphere with a mesoporous structure which can be used as a catalyst, and a method for manufacturing the same, in order to prepare a hollow metal sphere with a mesoporous structure in a simple way. In this case, the reaction surface of the hollow metal sphere can be increased, so the catalytic efficiency of the metal nano-catalysts can further be improved.